Emergency calls, such as 911 calls, may require the location of the caller. Location information allows for the emergency call to be routed to the proper Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Landline telephones are tied to a location and the location is associated with the telephone number. For example, a person's home telephone number may be associated with his or her home address for billing purposes. When an emergency call is initiated from the person's landline, the call is routed to the proper PSAP based on the address associated with the calling telephone number. Increasingly, emergency calls are being placed on mobile devices that are not tied to a single location. Furthermore, advances in technology allow users to transmit text messages, images, video, and data, in addition to making voice calls.
In order to provide enhanced services such as text messaging, images, video and data, the emergency communication system is transitioning from the current circuit switched network to an Internet Protocol (IP) enabled network. However, during the transition, not all services may be available at all PSAPs. Additionally, a call routed to the Emergency Services IP network (ESInet) may be routed back to a legacy (non-IP) PSAP. In this situation, the caller's location included in the call request may not be able to be passed in the call to the legacy PSAP.
Overview
An Internet Protocol (IP) router provides location information for an emergency communication session. The IP router receives a base station identifier associated with a request for the emergency communication session. The IP router selects a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) based on the base station identifier. The IP router determines a PSAP type and a network type for the selected PSAP. The IP router transfers a location request for delivery to a location control system and receives location information transferred from the location control system. The IP router converts the location information into PSAP signaling used by the selected PSAP based on the PSAP and network type. The IP router transfers the converted location information for delivery to the selected PSAP.